Resting up for the weekend! (Thanks to a little help from my *new* friends!)

That’s Gabriel and Daniel, lying on my pillow yesterday morning looking super cute and fun, which is what they are. 🙂

Sitting here with my feet up in our newly halfway-unpacked living room….ahhhhhhh!!! Every evening since last Monday night I’ve been on my feet til about 1am unpacking and organizing, with the exception of when I’ve had to nurse to baby.  Even most of my eating has been done standing up while I buzz around the kitchen, and NOW I am giving myself permission to sit. And then sit some more. And then nap. And then maybe sit again.  (This really did happen because before and after the nap today I was sitting to nurse Daniel :))  With the marathon only 5 days away, I am trying to take everyone’s advice to rest my legs and to hydrate.  But let me tell you, my relaxation time this evening was made even more enjoyable possible at all by my two new friends who came over to help unpack today.  They weren’t even really my friends until we chatted while unpacking, since I have only just met them both through the homeschool support email group and the homeschool cooperative.  So basically, these two total strangers came in and started going through all my things while their children, whom I had also never really met, played with mine all over the house and out in the cul-de-sac, almost completely unsupervised, except by one of their older children.  Yes, I feel blessed to have met some wonderful strangers who are no longer quite as strange! 🙂  Sarah came over last Friday and then again today, and with her today came Joell.  Both are teachers at the co-op, and Sarah has a son in class with Patience and Gabriel – in the class that Joell teaches (zoology.)  Needless to say, the children had a great time today with their new little friends and enjoyed the unpacking much more than they would have if I had been on my own occasionally snapping at them for getting in my way. 🙂  Today we made it through several more boxes in the kitchen and most of the book boxes in the living room, enough to enable us to better arrange the living room and really start to “live” in it. 🙂 Double smile face. 🙂  After they left I nursed Daniel again and then was able to nap because John was home a bit early.  I slept from 3:45-6pm.  Seriously.  I know you are jealous now. (Sorry to incite envy in my readers…)  When I finally tore myself out of bed, I was greeted by a cheerful Greer who had – get this – woken up from her nap, pulled down her pants, taken off her nappy, pooped in the little potty, wiped herself, pulled her pants back up, and then come to report to me on her accomplishment.   Folks, if you need a better advertisement for infant potty training, I can’t come up with one.  She turned two on August 30.  Yes, she still wears nappies, but she poops and pees in them just about…well, almost never.  I went through the whole “changing poopy diapers until they’re almost three” thing with Liesl and Gabriel, so I feel your pain if that’s what is going on with you right now.  And PLEASE, don’t feel like an underachiever if your child isn’t trained by two in the conventional way.  (But if your child was trained by age 1 in the conventional way, I give you my permission to certainly feel like an overachiever — I hardly had it done by age 3!)  Infant potty training is such a different animal, that trying to compare a child trained from birth to one who begins training as a toddler is like comparing apples to oranges.  Anyway, I digress….I nursed Daniel again and then made porkchops and garlicky green beans for dinner.  Then John fixed us all some BlueBell Rocky Road ice cream.  And now I’m chilling out with my laptop in my new comfy chair spot (that’s what you call the place where all your things are staged for your comfort — the seat that reclines, the table for your drink, the basket of things necessary for nursing a baby, the lapdesk for your laptop, etc.)  while the children and John fill the room with laughter as they watch “America’s Funniest Videos” on Netflix.  Heaven. 🙂

An update on the last few days since I have been remiss…I DID get in that last 8 mile run this weekend.  It was tough at points since my tummy was a bit upset after my pizza for lunch and naptime (I ran around 6:30pm), but that annoyance came and went, so parts of the run still were enjoyable.  It ended up being around a 10:00 min/mile average pace, and I’m happy to say I only have two more runs before the big day.  Don’t get me wrong – I really do love running – but training for something this involved adds a little more to the mix, causing me to worry about sustaining an injury or getting sick or a myriad of other things that just don’t regularly occur to me.  There is so much money already committed – besides just the race fees, there’s the hotel for three nights, the trip up there (about 12 hours in the van with the kids) and back, the food for three days (also going to a special dinner for Run to Honor), and the fact that Christine (aka supernanny) is flying down from New York to spend the weekend with us.  Add to this that all my fans on facebook and the blog – you know, the cheering masses who follow my life online (all three of you) – will be pulling for me, and there is a lot “riding” on this weekend.  I will be glad when it has come and gone (even though I feel that it is sure to be one of the most memorable experiences of my life) so that I can get back to reality for a bit. 🙂  Let me just tell you about the BEST PART of my 8 mile run this weekend — the protein recovery shake. Oh yes.  It was amazing.  I call it my “Eggnog Latte Frappucino Protein Shake.”  Want to know how to make your own?  Curious about it’s nutritional content? Well read on, my friend….

Here’s what I put into this beauty:

Also, I used about this much ice:

Specific things to know:

1 cup Eggnog

1/2 cup Almond Milk

1/2 tsp cinnamon coffee syrup

2 tsp decaf instant coffee

1 scoop protein powder

about 2 cups crushed ice

Even Greer loved it:

Nutritional information:

Calories: 430

Fat (from the eggnog and protein powder): 10g

Sodium: 375 mg

Potassium: 680 mg

Carbs (mostly all sugars, a little fiber in the Almond milk): 50

Protein: 31 – 1/2  g

Talk about a recovery shake!! It was my whole dinner that night. Yum!

A few final thoughts before I feed Daniel again and get myself to bed…I was reading Hungry Runner Girl’s blog today, and she posted some quotes from a book by Kristin Armstrong called Mile Markers.  I haven’t read it yet, but now I think I will make a beeline to the bookstore (is that a proper use of the colloquialism “beeline?” Is that even how it’s spelled?)  I won’t quote it here, since Janae did such a good job of posting it on her blog, but I will summarize the sentiments — it was a section about the power of GRATITUDE.  The book describes how being thankful for all the blessings in her life has helped her at mile 26 of a marathon and to push through other tough challenges.  How rephrasing “I have to” into “I get to” can revolutionize the way you feel about something.  I am right there with her!! I guess because I’m so fresh off of running until I was 40+ weeks pregnant, and because I watched some of the Paralympics, and because I’ll be running in honor of those who have given their lives in the service of our country this Saturday, I already feel like every run is a gift.  I GET TO RUN not pregnant (yippee!) And when I was pregnant, I was gifted with the ability (two legs, no injuries or pregnancy-related health issues) to continue running through my delivery date.  Every day, I GET TO SERVE my children and my husband.  I think I shared the other day about the lady on Biggest Loser Season 8 (Abby – you can read her story by clicking on her name.) who lost her family in a tragic accident.  I know we shouldn’t dwell on the bad things in life, but I bring it up again just to say that we need to remember every day how incredibly blessed we are.  Every day, I have a body that functions which I can use to run, to hug, to cook, to clean, to drive people places, to speak, to listen.  So many people in this world don’t have the blessing of health!! And that’s just the beginning!  We are also blessed financially to be able to eat every day and to have a nice place to live, a car to get from place to place, and lots of things that are way beyond our basic “needs.”  Beyond that, I am blessed with a husband who supports me fully (never begrudging me the time to enjoy playing my bagpipes or running) and who counts me as a blessing, too.  So – I think that now I am no longer nervous about running my first marathon this weekend.  I GET to go to DC with my wonderful family to run this amazing race.  Every part of the weekend is just icing on the cake of spending time together as a family with our friend Christine as well (ummm…minus the 4-5 hours when I’m running – that will just be time spent with thousands and thousands of runners and spectators!)  And tonight – I have so enjoyed “getting” to blog again! 🙂